Rocket Lawyer can help you when you are looking to offer tax relief to potential investors. Get help when applying for SEIS and/or EIS with advice from Rocket Lawyer. Contact us for a free initial consultation with a lawyer to answer your questions about applying for SEIS and/or EIS. 

Applying for tax relief for potential investors could cost as little as £499+VAT. Your lawyer will give you a fixed price for the work they will complete, helping to manage costs.

When purchasing SEIS and/or EIS legal advice from Rocket Lawyer’s panel of solicitors, you will also be entitled to receive a free 6 month Rocket Lawyer Premium Plan membership. 

With a Rocket Lawyer Premium Plan, you get free access to all of Rocket Lawyer's documents and Ask a lawyer service. This means you can ask free legal questions, create as many contracts and forms as you'd like, and sign and store documents in the cloud.

For more information, read our Pricing page.

The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme or SEIS is a government initiative for business startups, which is designed to help startups get investment. It works by offering tax relief to potential investors. SEIS is designed to allow a company to raise money at the early stage of its existence, where investment is risky and hard to obtain.

The Enterprise Investment Scheme or EIS is a government initiative for business startups, which is designed to help startups get investment. They work by offering tax relief to potential investors. EIS is targeted at more established businesses to allow them to grow.

To be eligible SEIS investment, the company:

• should not have more than £200,000 of gross assets when shares are issued

• cannot have been trading for more than 2 years

• must have less than 25 full-time employees.

• can only raise a maximum of £150,000 through the SEIS scheme.

For more information, read Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS).

To be eligible EIS investment:

• the company cannot have more than £15 million of gross assets before any shares are issued (or not more than £16 million immediately after the scheme)

• the investment must be within 7 years of the company's first commercial sale, or 10 years for knowledge intensive companies 

• the company must have less than 250 full-time employees

• the company can only raise £5 million per year through the EIS scheme (maximum of £12 million overall)

For more information, read Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).

For an investment to qualify as an EIS or SEIS investment, the money raised must be used for a qualifying business activity. This could be:

• a qualifying trade 

• preparing to carry out a qualifying trade

• research and development for a qualifying trade

The money raised by the new share issue must also:

• be spent within 2 years

• not be used to buy all or part of another company

• be used to grow or develop your business

While SEIS and EIS may not benefit a company directly, they provide an incentive for investors looking to buy new shares in the company. This helps build capital to help your business begin to trade (in the case of SEIS) and to expand and grow in the market (in the case of EIS).